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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Let It Snow

Already this winter we’ve had a couple of snows with more
predicted for this weekend.

Yup. A White Christmas!!

I was reminded in a recent conversation about a sledding
hill I always went to growing up near Kettering,
Ohio. It was famously named
Suicide Hill. This was a real sled eater. Approaching the climb there were
barrel fires fed by broken wooden sleds sacrificed to Suicide Hill.

The hill was deceptive. Trees lined the descent so that any
veering brought the sledder into contact with them. As a kid I was always
bailing, letting gravity take the sled into it’s gentle good night, the tight
fist of death. I cannot count how many sleds my brothers, sister, and I ruined.

The back of Suicide Hill was just as dangerous as the front—though
perhaps not as many trees. A ride this direction was longer and not as fast,
but full of moguls or bumps that sent me flying. The community golf course
where the hill was located was the product of glacial moraines: imagine icy fingers
digging into soft ground creating drumlins and ridges. I think the golf course
was called Hills & Dales.

Just getting to the top of the hill required digging in the
heels of my boots and hanging on to tree branches, a bit like climbing
hand-over-hand. Sometimes I wondered if it would be better just to go on my
hands and knees. Once at the top you’d have to catch your breath. Standing at
the brink looking down—especially as a little kid abandoned by my older
brothers and sister—it was steep. Somehow I don’t remember this stopping me
though.

I Googled suicide hill kettering
and right away something like 6 million results came up—a rush of nostalgia. From
a forum (about another structure in the park—a boarded up tower—which I’ll
write about later in another blog post):

Aug 13, 2009
9:57 AM

It was there when we used to sled ride on "suicide
hill" about 1955, and my father said that it was there when he was in
high school and had a car, about 1937.
----------
Mikey, Gatlinburg, TN

'SUICIDE HILL' CLAIMS FOUR SLEDDERS.(NEWS)

DAYTON, Ohio -- Four women broke their backs in sledding accidents last month
on a golf course slope known as ''Suicide Hill.''
All four women were treated at Miami
Valley Hospital's
emergency room.
''It was strange, because they were practically carbon copies of each
other,'' said Dr. Norman Schneiderman, medical director of the emergency and
trauma center.
The women all hit the same bump on the slope at the 12th tee of Community
Golf Course in suburban Kettering
and went airborne. As they came down again onto their sleds, they suffered
compression fractures to the lower back.

There is even a Suicide Hill Facebook page.

So often our memory plays tricks on us. Memories more times
than not don’t synch with reality. The biggest, the highest, the whatever is
usually brought down to earth when revisited. Here is one instance where the
memory is not distorted or exaggerated by time.

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NEW!!! e-book edition

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Quick Bio

Jane Hertenstein is the author of Home is Where We Live: Life at a Shelter Through a Young Girl’s Eyes (picture book), Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady (with Marie James), and Beyond Paradise (YA fiction). See BOOKS
She has taught mini courses in memoir at the university level as well as seminars at Cornerstone Festival, Prairie School of Writing. Jane is listed on the Illinois Artists Roster. Roster Artists are certified by the Illinois Arts Council to work in public schools introducing young people to the arts. She lives in Chicago where she facilitates a “happening” critique group.